Publishers of information in digital form desire to prevent the unauthorized and unaccounted distribution or usage of electronically published materials. Electronically published materials are typically distributed in a digital form and recreated on a computer based system. Audio and video recordings, computer programs, books, and multimedia are examples of works that are suitable for publishing electronically. The sales revenue for companies in the electronic publishing and information systems industries includes payments based on an accounting for delivery of information in digital form, for example the sale of an audio CD at a retail outlet. Any unaccounted distribution of a work results in decreased revenue to the distributor and decreased royalty for the owner of usage rights in the work. For example, being able to copy an audio recording CD to another digital medium from which the audio can be retrieved and played circumvents payment for distribution from which royalty for copyright may have been due to the owner of rights in the work.
Owners of rights in electronically published works also desire to prevent the unauthorized and unaccounted distribution or usage of such materials. When records of the distribution and usage of a work are held exclusively by the distributor, falsification of records results in increased profit for the distributor and loss of royalty income for the owner of rights.
Unauthorized and unaccounted distribution can be curbed by preventing unauthorized copying of the work onto digital storage media and unauthorized transmission of the work over computer networks. Unauthorized and unaccounted usage can be curbed by preventing storage of the work for reuse or by monitoring the use of stored copies.
Existing systems and methods for preventing storage, transmission, and unmonitored use of digital works place a heavy burden of cost on the consumer desiring access to a work in digital form. The continued expansion of publication and use of works in digital form cannot remain within the policies for intellectual property protection (such as providing incentives to authors and publishers) without systems and methods for computer network operation that provide an accurate basis for usage fees.